one last hurrah for a cia whistle blower john kiriakou soon to be in prison for leaking government information kiriakou friends and supporters honored his commitment to telling the truth and speak about the future of whistleblowers in the u.s. coming up we'll share what happened at the somber celebration to the street you hold your money. she may be homeless but she's taking her fight straight to the bank and she's not alone four years after the too big to fail bank bailouts these protesters want you to know what the bank of america is up to. and in an ironic twist the white house is welcoming tech savvy americans in its first ever hackathon this as political activist and hacker jeremy hammond fights his case against the government from behind bars.

it's friday february twenty second four pm in washington d.c. how to make a lopez and you're watching our take. as regular r t if you were is no cia whistle blower john kiriakou was sentenced to thirty months in prison for leaking information about want to boarding and systematic cia torture to the media hora last night he couldn't have been further from a jail cell as supporters held a sendoff banquet just one week before he was expected to head to praise it human rights activists journalists family and friends attended the event but it wasn't all dancing and dining as his prison sentence loomed are cheaper to serve rachael curteous was at last night's event and joins us now to tell more about the event so rachel what happened last night can you talk to us about it sure absolutely it was a very tense riddled affair in many ways because well it was in probably one of the

ritziest places in d.c. that's it's called the hay adams hotel and it overlooks the white house we were in kind of this penthouse suite in in the sense. it was it was very clear that it was called an orange ball so that meant a lot of people were say wearing jumpsuits with bow ties underneath so kind of the tension of of the fanciness as well as the prison sentence that loomed was very much in the air and the reason why they chose this this place to hold the event was because you had a great view of the white house and of the washington monument in the idea was to look down on the torturers have a moment when they were kind of on top when these activists had an opportunity to look down instead of say look behind bars now john kerry for many years works for the cia and beyond that he he also was the one to leak these cia torture tactics what are his a thought study talk about some of the agency now and where it's headed yes he absolutely did in some remarks he said that in some ways he still loved the cia and the promise that it could potentially hold for you know american for making america

a better and more free place as well as the rest of the world but what he also said was he was incredibly concerned with the way the cia was being managed in particular he brought up cia nominee for director john brennan who has been a part of the security apparatus for quite a long time and i was hoping we could take a listen to what he said about john brennan. i've known john brennan for a long time i've known him for twenty two years and worked directly for him. i think he's a terrible choice to be cia director. yes so essentially he's saying that this is a man who has overseen a lot of killing a lot of essentially throwing out of the constitution and that he thought of the cia was going to be. an organization that he could envision being better it wouldn't be that way if john brennan were at the head of it now he is about to head to prison for quite a amount of time two years is definitely not a small sentence he is leaving his five children behind does he have any regrets

about this whole matter sure i think that it's it was very clear in speaking with him that he's going to miss his family certainly he's hoping that once he leaves prison he'll be able to provide for them in a way that he won't be when he's behind bars but he also seemed very steadfast in his actions in terms of having a regret about whistleblowing itself he he didn't really and he spoke about that as well with us if we'd like to take a listen. i see parallels with the one nine hundred fifty s. with the mccarthy era i really do and now you know with fifty years of hindsight or fifty plus years i'd say we realize how utterly wrong those people were i know in my heart that years from now people are going to look back and they're going to know that we were on the right side of history we were the ones who were right the government was wrong. yes so he's hoping that in the end history will come to vindicate him and his actions despite spending these next thirty months behind bars now there is a lot of people at last night's event can you talk about the future of whistleblowers

i know thomas drake was there is it is it a bleak future for was a blowers at this point yes certainly so as a bit of background john kiriakou was the sixth person in the obama administration who's been prosecuted under the espionage act which was created during world war one and its ties to current whistleblower bits v.c.s. especially. according to a lot of lawyers who were at last night's event and thomas drake was was the first of these people prosecuted under the under the espionage act and he talked to us a little bit about what that was like and just as background he was part of the national security agency and he broke essentially the story or leak the press leak to the press all of the warrantless wiretapping going on and he had something to say about what he thought the future was going to be like for whistleblowers. no indication that they're letting up i mean it's pretty clear that right now they're going to wiki leaks look at all possible legal you see there. you're still

others i mean there's major investigations you realize major investigations going on the f.b.i. and other government agencies you do kill leaks. so the lesson there and the lesson both from mr drake mr alcuin other guests at the event last night was listen he's going to be in jail for thirty months don't forget about him and don't forget about the larger issues he stood for both sent him letters but also trying to keep that fight for government transparency and accountability alive and well very interesting thank you so much for attending that event bringing us this report back our to producer rachel kirsten yes thanks for having me. well it was a promise we've heard president obama reiterate time and again since two thousand and nine from campaign speeches to state the union addresses white house weekly addresses to town halls no more taxpayer bailouts never again will taxpayers be on the hook because a financial company is deemed too big to fail but never say never it appears that

bank bailouts can and do still happen just in the form of covert backdoor deals here's what we found out last week the new york fed said in a court filing that in july it had released bank of america from all legal claims arising from losses in some mortgage backed securities the fed received when the government bailed out the american international group in two thousand and eight that is essentially mortgage lender a.i.g. was attempting to sue bank of america for billions of dollars for selling them toxic assets but the fed is getting in the way not only is the fed telling a.g. that it can't sue but it is also refusing to sue the mega bank itself so if an institution as big as a. isn't powerful enough to take on the bank of america what hope is there for average americans getting restitution that they feel they deserve or to

correspondent ramon brings us this tragic story of one woman who lost everything except for her well to fight. foreclosed home owners in los angeles are calling out wall street giant bank of america this is ridiculous i mean how greedy can people be among them is single mom sold out of corona and spent over forty thousand dollars trying to get by on that and that's all we want it's just simply our mortgage after negotiating loan terms with beauty krone says the bank held her payment sending her into default occupy activists tried to keep her in her home but grown and her daughter were eventually evicted and that's what they do they create blight in communities it's sad it's it's tragic actually. and i haven't lived and honestly.

as i. heard from your great family so they throw you to the street they hold your money they like two years after the mortgage meltdown mainstream america still feeling the brunt of the crisis wall street executives have been able to avoid prosecution through a series of fraud settlements b. of a and other big banks have agreed to pay billions of dollars for their financial schemes but deals with the feds have bailed out bank of america from having to pay billions more in legal claims and back america has paid lots and lots of money out but it is really a pittance of what they gain throughout the financial bubble that was that was built up in the housing market regulators have been criticized for putting more priority on keeping banks afloat than on the rule of law yes can you identify when you last took the wall street banks to trial. i will have to get back to you with the specific information but we do litigate they have not been held to account and they continue many of the same practices and are just as big it's not bigger than

they were before the foreclosure rate has decreased since the peak of the crisis but there were still more than a million homes that fell into foreclosure in two thousand and twelve. ok. well bonuses on wall street continue to grow so does the heartache of america's foreclose families we don't want anything freen we just want our homes and to continue paying our mortgage oh. yeah right here in los angeles ramon the lindo r t three right. yes. all right everyone will we are t. minus six days until the dreaded sequester that is automatic government spending cuts that everyone from economists to politicians have said could cripple the u.s. economy and yet nothing's being done about it for months now we've heard of how cuts like this could be a death blow to the u.s. military but it goes beyond that so let's take

a look at how these cuts will affect your life it will slash some three billion dollars in health care services for military families the health and human services department says it will reduce hiv testing by four hundred thousand due to funding cuts the t.s.a. will face for low days so that could end up meaning longer security lines for passengers and the food and drug administration will experience two hundred sixteen million dollars in cuts so that could affect regulations of our food quality and the list goes on it also affects schools new york schools alone will face one hundred two million dollars in federal aid cuts so here to tell me how congress can let this happen and what it means for our wallets our. patrick c. chord meter for the school of americas watch our toto thank you so much for joining me so let's start by talking about the cuts to education what does that mean for our children. well. some of the cuts that are discussed as you as you just

mentioned were for federal schooling and then some of the head start program four hundred million as well so who is going to because. pretty much appears most all of these cuts but it's not going to be felt automatically it seems more of a percentage decrease over the next several months for the fiscal year between now between march and and september so. for example on some of the head start programs that it's more likely that there will be more of maybe an increase in the amount of families would have to pay not necessarily that tens of thousands of children will be cut off of the program. i mean in reality. if you like it's just a lot of fear mongering to be able to point to these these types of programs that are obviously yes important and needed and there shouldn't be cuts to them but it's more of a hostage situation to really avoid the defense cuts and i think that that's where we should be but the focus should be on the that the fence has the budget is

bloated and and it shouldn't. avoiding cuts there shouldn't. be so damaging to to other people but i think a lot of the damage can still be avoided either way so potentially avoiding defense cuts at the cost of possibly our future in the in our children but i do have to ask you because it seems a little bit hypocritical considering the fact that president obama in this most recent state of the union address talked about early childhood education funding preschool so how can he do to add to how can we fall fund these preschools and have more children entering interning on early childhood education but also be cutting schools. yeah doesn't make much sense for them to use these. specifically to point to these cuts it's completely unnecessary in the sense that. you don't need to cut these programs that they're

a drop in the bucket compared to to the defense budget and. you can look elsewhere or the other major obstacle of course is that the republicans refuse to consider any spend any tax increases so here we're just talking about cuts and. it doesn't make any sense it just shows the power of the fence industry where you're going to to have. weaken the social safety net which we was already weakened and which actually needs to be strengthened these types of programs instead of being cut and which is kind of now the congress has painted the entire country into a corner. and we you know there still needs to be looking forward for types of alternatives to these automatic cuts and again it really goes back to looking at the defense budget and yet we have both a drawdown going on in afghanistan and the technology is becoming cheaper because

of drones and whatnot and cyber cyber security but also congress is on recess right now they're on vacation so the last time that we had something crazy like this happened it was the fiscal cliff and we heard all of the rhetoric all the craziness come up with the fiscal cliff i think congress went and said we went off that fiscal cliff but then they said retroactively we did not go off the fiscal cliff is it possible that we could go to the sequester and then congress decides that we retroactively didn't go to the sequester or is what the damage already done i mean that's exactly what's going to happen and it appears that they're going to they're going to let this happen on march first action it appears very likely that action will be taken by congress before then so the sequester will all supposed to kick in but it appears to just be the that will be the jolt to get these congress members to actually work toward something and it's pretty much expected that in march that they will they'll do exactly what you've just said that they will go back and

retroactively say that the sequester didn't occur and the beach is very. you know since since the cuts are also budgeted for for until september. it will just take as long as that takes that there actually be any type of. spending decreases it may not even be felt but archer i thought the point of the sequester correct me if i'm wrong was to force congress into action so how can we force them into action. they don't have to go to the debt by they can russia actively. just forget themselves and forgive the economy i guess right i mean it's just one it's a testament to just how dysfunctional washington and the congress for the years and how they don't really. answer to the needs of the majority of people going instead more to special interests most notably defense and they're willing to risk all of these things and like i said there's fear mongering coming from all sides from from from the army from the joint chiefs of staff from the white house from

congress from the republicans mostly from people that are you know the defense hawks but it really is just they're trying to scare everybody and. but the reality situation is that this should have been a you know there should have been reasonable cuts taken at other parts of the notably again the fence and they want to instead of. just having some sensible cuts i mean as you had. alluded to this earlier but. you know if they even if all of the cuts for defense were to go through there which is go to two thousand and seven spending levels and that was in the middle of the rust or afghanistan war and. it's really a shame that that this is this has to occur the there has to be this much fear mongering archer of a scar advocacy coordinator for the school of americas want to thank you for joining us and for your opinions thank you. well hack your heart out that's the

message coming out of the white house today as the obama administration continues to appeal to tech savvy americans with the first ever hackathon the idea behind the hackathon is to create a new petition page for the public to contact the government online the obama administration is looking for a major revamp for its re the people web site which in the first half of which. who are the people that are responsible for the web site in the first place now the white house is actually inviting hackers to come in and redesign the website actually ceding control of the website to the people who most often use it this hackathon happens to coincide a with the open data day and the obama administration says it hopes to attract data visualisation specialists technology developers and host developers in order to participate to create this more user friendly site that will not only allow people to create petitions but will also allow them to track

the real time progress of any response to the legislation that comes as a result. now as of right now more than six million people have left more than ten million signatures on the current we the people web site everything from gun control to creating a death star has come up ever since the website's conception will have to see how that plays out on the other hand the government is encouraging so-called good to hacking but they are also attacking a cyber community the likes of which no ministration has ever done before during the same week that this white house supported hackathon is going to go down attorney general eric holder released a new report that outlines the administration's strategy to deal with cyber hacks that result in the theft of trade secrets meanwhile accused germy have and you see him right there on the screen is approaching the one year mark in his trial he has been sitting in jail since last march with no possibility of bail and no trial the

twenty seven year old is accused of helping them to hack the global intelligence firm known as strive for and helped them steal private correspondences credit card information donor names and more from the company's database for new information about the judge actually responsible for trying jeremy hammond has made the case all the war unusual here to break down the latest developments is our t.v. producer producer interplay hanjour so what what's going on with this case what's the latest developments of the judge will delays development is a very very minor one in the grand scheme of things that it's only going to mean that we're going to be stuck around waiting for a little bit more mature mayhem was arrested march fifth of last year and has yet to be tried for the accusations with lol second to none of us offshoot he was hectic stratfor hacking law enforcement agencies a result whole laundry list of counts that he's facing and in fact the judge so that he could be sentenced for thirty five years to life for this thing but

yesterday the judge who he is we just talked about her husband is somewhat connected this thing she said you know what. i'm not going to step down right now even though there was this huge grassroots campaign to have me removed from the case with actually a press release outside the courtroom yesterday despite all these things stick around so we don't have to wait till april which when the next round of hearings will start so let's back up just a little bit judge will read our prescott as the judge is dave she actually went into the ruling in the whole case is saying that her husband potentially was affected by the strap for hacks let's put up a. graphic to kind of visualize what she said in this ruling that that was in fact tonight she said in doing so defendant hopes to draw a link between the stress for hacking the interests of cash gordon clients which purportedly would then impose a financial interest upon cal gordon and in turn mr cavalier that's her husband and in turn this court defendant's attempt to draw such a link is

a few tiles absolutely futile that sounds a little. unfriendly and your own you know i read the whole the whole motion came out yesterday and a couple of different times she said a couple of different things that make you go really you're trying to put this motion where you're saying that you don't have any bias whatsoever but you're only from this verbal not just the defendant but his attorneys and his supporters and pretty much so the people who are rallying for jeremy him and who were trying to draw these connections they were even speculative they were just just crap and even though we know we see that her husband this this cavalier fellow is his name and email address were leaked through the stratford i don't now it wasn't his credit card information and it wasn't any monetary loss but he was still involved and he was still targeted and he has a reason to not want his name and e-mail address circulate as part of this huge criminal event that is been going on for over a year now we still haven't seen any developments so right now we have him locked

up for over a year almost see where we've got bradley. manning who's been without trial for over a thousand days aaron swartz committed suicide and it was. supposedly as a result of the department of jesse justice going after him and our men of justice also going after wiki leaks are we starting to see a trend as far as how cyber hackers are prosecuted i wouldn't say we're starting to see a trend it's been happening for months if not years just the last couple of weeks especially with aaron's passing there's been this whole kind of renewed interest in paying attention to these people who are locked up who are fighting these charges because people are starting to realize that these charges might be a little bit silly people are starting look at these counts are being filed and go that could be anyone that could be me and affect me haven't released a letter from prison today we're sorry for this week where he attacks computer fraud and abuse act which is the legislation that they used to go after erin that they used to go after germany go used to go after pretty much most hackers is that

the c.f.a. and you know he was he also said the same thing that he thinks the justice department is responsible for aaron stuff but maybe c.f.e. a reform isn't the solution maybe we just need to abolish it we need to start all over because here is an antiquated computer law from the eighty's that they're using it it's way to a lot of people so you just need to overly broad that you can pretty much stress the case if you're the government to prosecute pretty much anyone for anything involving a mouse or a keyboard and they're doing that to silence people who are sharing information that's critical the u.s. government as we see with him and as we saw with manning as we saw with with countless others being keep going in going going to go through all the different and members who've been in prison and we only have about a minute left i have to ask you because we have all these cases of prosecutions of hackers and yet we have stocks that we have flame we have cyber at the white house right so can you explain this i mean apparently what's good for the goose is not

good for the gander right i mean i really think that the white house report this week was perhaps the most hip. critical thing that the obama administration has done yet and that's saying a lot because here they are actually trying to recruit hackers to come in and make their website and even their website pretty the petition part they want to make sure that people could more more more easily petition for a death star which is fantastic but they're going to use their resources and they're going to use america's brains and minds and their ability to do that kind of stuff but at the same time going to prosecute people who are trying to expand that knowledge to others outside of the beltway while we're going to try to recruit those same people to wage or start wars in iran and china and all that it's very hypocritical and i think people need to step back and realize that the government can't be picking and choosing what they want to do with these geniuses a very interesting dichotomy well producer as you like make sure you check out our website for the very latest on all of these cases a brand new website r.t. dot car let us say thank you and you know it's not a hollywood fantasies are made of down to the thing is

a good girl and you. are. going to. great time. but one woman learned about the consequences of being a cool mom the hard way when her son's party became more of a midnight express than a girl next door this is judy viger thirty three year olds a mom from grace and new york for her son sixteenth birthday party at a local bowling alley she hired two so-called female adult entertainers to perform intimate dances for the guests in between strikes and gutter balls dancers performed for the eighty teen and adult guests five of whom were younger than seventeen years old the age of some of these guests ended up being the issue after

photos of these intimate dancers appeared online viger was arrested and charged with five counts of endangering the welfare of a child police claim that several child guests at the party received lap dances contests the notion that these dancers were strippers instead she said that they were at the party to deliver what is called a guess a bikini gram and that they stayed in those bikinis for the duration of the party her next court date is march seventh no word yet as to whether she will hire these bikini grams for members of the jury and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america or check out our website r t dot com slash usa there you can catch and stories and follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez i want to know what you want us to cover so tweet me and i will see you right back here at five pm with more news and in-depth interviews.